Don’t ask me why I obsessively look to rock ’n’ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it’s just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a yearning for an ideal society inspired by the beauty perceived in music.
In this quote, Lester Bangs expresses his fascination with rock 'n' roll bands as archetypes for an improved society. He articulates a longing for a profound and uplifting experience he once had, suggesting that this moment of beauty has influenced his outlook and pursuit of a more fulfilling existence ever since. The 'flashbulb moment' symbolizes epiphany, representing a rare insight into a possible ideal that he now chases.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of music on culture, you might use this quote to highlight the visions artists inspire.
Look at it this way: There are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100 percent, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.
Rock'n'roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock'n'roll, or a movie can be rock'n'roll. It's a way of living your life.
Style is originality; fashion is fascism. The two are eternally and unalterably opposed.
In the chapel you prayed to be a saint and now I will make you a god.
An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
If you want to be free, be free, because there's a million things to be.
A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.
Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.
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